Current printing apparatuses allow for printing on cylindrical objects such as bottles and cans. For example, a path of rollers may be used to spin the cylindrical objects under a print head to print labels or text on the cylindrical objects.
Spherical objects present a challenge. Some printing apparatuses allow for printing on smaller spherical objects, such as golf balls, that use a suction arm and only provide a single axis of rotation. For example, the suction arm may rotate the golf ball around a single axis as an image or text is printed on the golf ball.
Another example of a printer for spherical objects is a Heidelberg Jetmaster. However, these printing apparatuses require 6 vector components to manipulate the print head around the spherical object. Having a large number of vector components leads to many mechanical parts and motors that can fail and additional complexity for motion quality, control scheme, and the like.